How To Plan A Trip To Europe: The First Step To Backpacking Europe

Traveling abroad can be a task. We are about to visit a completely different country with
its own rules and regulations. The fear of the unknown, combined with our laziness,
often lures us to visit the office of a tour operator, pay them a considerable
amount of money, and hope for a hassle-free trip.

Roman forum and somewhere from here Marc Antony delivered his famous speech

Why Planning is Necessary?

Many of my
friends are quite enthusiastic about discovering new places with an operator,
but I prefer to plan my own journey from scratch. This gives me a sense of
freedom and also gives me an opportunity to make my trip comfortable. while planning
a trip of your own, you have the luxury of choosing your own accommodation,
indulge in local cuisines and visit tourist spots with an ample amount of time in
hand. I had traveled only once with a tour operator and my experience had been
anything but pleasant.

Recently,
there is also news of a famous international tour operator closing its
business in India. This has led to the cancellation of several pre-booked tours
and the tourists are waiting for the refund of the money. This incident has
made me more determined in planning and managing your own itinerary. Trust me,
it is always better!

Before the
internet became cheap in India, courtesy Jio, planning a tip involved buying a
travel guide, dusting off the railway time table, standing in the queue to book
train tickets and contacting hotels recommended by our friends and relatives. However,
now that internet is so easily accessible to all and sundry, there is an ocean
of information to help in planning a trip.

However, when
I was planning a trip to Europe, I found that swimming through the ocean of
information can be pretty challenging. This blog is to help my fellow travelers
to plan an itinerary to Europe on their own. If you have a valid passport, you
are at liberty to attempt a trip to Europe.

Europe Trip- The Basic Considerations

The basic
considerations for a Europe trip are-

(a)The duration of the trip

(b)The budget

(c)The
destinations

These three
considerations are again dependent on each other. Let us briefly look at each
of them.

The Duration of the Trip

The duration
of the trip would be strictly according to the absence you can afford from your
job or business, but anything less than 2 weeks will not do justice to your
trip.

However, we
must keep in mind that the more you travel, your budget shall shoot up. Again,
if you want to experience local cuisines and ambiance of the city, a mere visit
to attractions won’t suffice. In other words, to know a place better, you need
to spend more time there.

My suggestion
is to keep at least two weeks in hand and then fit in your destinations in Europe.
Ensure that you get proper rest and don’t try to fit in everything, no matter
how lucrative the idea might seem.

The Budget

This is where
I have to break it to you, the bitter truth, my fellow travelers. Europe is
expensive if you are traveling from India.

Therefore, if
you are planning a trip to Europe, ensure to have a handsome budget, the more
the better. I shall share with you a few important tricks to reduce your
expenditure but those tricks are strictly for people who plan to go for a
backpacking trip. If you are traveling with your family, it is obvious that
you shall be looking for comfort and needless to mention, this comfort comes at
a price.

The budget
also depends on the destinations you have chosen, which brings us to the
following section.

The Destinations

A rough
sketch of the European countries of major interests is as under.

So there's your flowchart to plan a Euro-trip out effectively. In the map
above, red is the most expensive, green is relatively cheaper, and orange being
somewhere in between.

One trend
that I observed while researching the cost of living of the European countries
is that the more you go south, the cheaper it becomes. Similarly, western
European countries are more expensive than their eastern counterparts.

My suggestion
is to go for a healthy mix of cheaper and expensive destinations to control
your budget. Secondly, you need to ask yourself as to what and where you really
want to visit during the trip?

When I was
contemplating my destinations, I asked myself as to what really made me interested
in Europe? I traced my curiosity back to the history lessons in my school when
o was reading about the Renaissance in Europe. Similarly, during my college days
when I was watching movies like "Angels and Demons" or "Inception", "Da Vinci Code", etc.
I often wished to visit those wonderful movie locations in the future. Thus I chose
Rome and Vatican City as a primary destination.

How effectively the Nautilus shell structure merged in the architecture!

This was followed by choosing
Paris as I really wanted to see “The Monalisa” and the “Bir-Hakeim Bridge”. My
friend lives in Berlin and thus it became another destination. I had then
planned my itinerary. I observed that I can fit in another location as few days
were left in my plan of two weeks. I chose the final destination to be Venice
because of my love for “Assassins’ Creed” and felt it would add the necessary variety
in the trip.

The view from the Paris Bridge

Best Season to Visit Europe

Choosing the
right season to visit Europe is essential. Summer is the best season but it is
also the season when the cost of travel and accommodation is very high. Winters
in Europe are not ideal for travel, but they have a charm of their own.

Keeping these
three basic considerations in mind let us further plan our trip.

A dedicated Engineer and Photographer. A de facto artist, who loves to paint his thoughts on papers. Traveling places and leaping into the ocean of unknowns quenches his wanderlust. Being an avid reader of books and a movie junkie, loves to visit places that he could relate to the pages or the screens.